Lego Robotics

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

It's Back

It's back with all new and exciting missions. Many are begining to prepare for the new challenges. This years nano quest involves missions such as Individual Atom Manipulation, Atomic Force Microscopy, Molecular Motor, Nanotube strength and much more. Although we have many new challenges some still have the same basic concepts. We look foward to our new challenges and tasks.

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

The June Competition

Robert(my partner) and I, are very excited about the competition on June 3. We look foward to the many challenges that are going to be at the competition. We split up the tasks amongst our other teammates and we have the mountain climber and the slalom challenge. We already have the two robots built and we are currently working on the programming

Friday, May 26, 2006

Progress

Robert and I have progressed very quikly. We currently have a robot and a robot arm. we still need to extend our claw becaues it does not fit the circumfrence of the an.We look foward to he june competition.

Friday, February 24, 2006

Report of information

Robots

A robot is a mechanical device that can perform physical tasks. A robot may act under the direct control of a human autonomously (independent) or under the control of a pre-programmed computer. Robots may be used to perform tasks that are too difficult, too boring or even to dangerous for humans. The focus of this report is to tell how robots benefit the society. When, why, how and where they were created. I will also describe what a robot is, how robots work, and the dangers and fears of robots. In this report I will also state useful facts and questions.How Are Robots Capable of movementA typical robot performs a task by following a set of instructions that specify exactly what it must do to complete the job. These instructions are stored in the robots center, a computer or part of a computer. The computer in turn, sends the commands to the robots motorized joints, which function much like a humans joints, to move to various parts of the robot.The 3 Laws of roboticsThere are three laws of robotics that a robot must follow.A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the first law.A robot must protect its own existence, as long as this does not conflict with the first two laws.

Current developmentRobots have developed over time in many different ways. . Robots are growing in complexity and their use in industry is becoming more widespread. The main use of robots has so far been in the automation of mass production industries, where the same, definable, tasks must be performed repeatedly in exactly the same fashionNow that background technologies of behavior, navigation and path planning have been solved using basic wheeled robots, roboticists are moving on to develop walking robots. Robots are growing in complexity and their use in industry is becoming more widespread. The main use of robots has so far been in the automation of mass production industries, where the same, definable, tasks must be performed repeatedly in exactly the same fashion

Dangers and FearsAlthough robots have yet to develop to the stage where they pose any threat or danger to society, fears and concerns about robots have been repeatedly expressed in a wide range of books and films. The principle theme is that robots will exceed the intelligence and ability to act of humans, and thereby takeover or destroy the human race. Currently, malicious programming of robots may be the biggest danger, particularly where large industrial robots are concerned. The power and size of industrial robots means they are capable of inflicting severe injury if programmed incorrectly or used in an unsafe manner. A incident occurred on July 21 1984, a industrial worker crushed a man. This incident may have been a accident but it shows the potential risks of working with robots.Future ProspectsMany scientists believe that robots will be able to approximate human-like intelligence in the first half of the 21st century.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

The different sensors that you can include on your robot are the touch sensor, light sensor, and the rotation sensor. The touch sensor can be used to make the robot perform an action after it is pushed in a certain amount of times. So you can tell your robot to keep moving until a touch sensor is hit and then to reverse for two seconds or whatever else you need it to do. A light sensor can be used to make your robot stop when it spots a light color or to perform a function like moving a robot arm when it spots a darker color. Using a rotation sensor you can see the number of rotations it takes your robot to travel a certain distance and you will be able to put this into your program to make your robot's movements more accurate and not put so much work on yourself as if you were using a timer. When you use timers you have to guess the amount of time it takes for your robot to go a certain distance and you have to keep adjusting it but by using the rotation sensor you will almost always get it on the first try or if you are off by a little a couple of more times. As you can see the use of sensors is very beneficial.

Rcx Brick

The RCX Brick is the brain behind Mindstorms and Robolab. It is small yellow and gray box that can be programmed to contain 5 different programs. The image up top best shows what it looks like. The RCX has three inputs (one analogue, two digital) and three outputs. This means that the RCX brick can gather readings from switches (using the digital inputs), heat/light/humidity sensors (using the analogue input) and can power three motors.The RCX is completely wireless for communication; the programs are downloaded to it using infrared. This opens the opportunity for free roaming by the RCX. Using the infrared communication two or bricks can communicate with each other, which opens up a staggering amount of ideas and uses for the RCX.One of the more genius functions of the RCX lies in an addition file that comes with both Mindstorms and the later versions of Robolab http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/dbrown/robolab/brick.htm

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Gears and rcx bricks

Gears are very important .At times they may be confusing but they sure are helpful.If a 8 tooth gear is turning a 40 tooth gear the robot will go slower.But if the 40 tooth gear is turning the 8 tooth gear then the robot will go faster.A rcx brick is something very important when it comes to lego robots.The rcx brick is what takes in all of the information that is given from the robolab program.It is considerd the brain of the robot.